We Go Round the Worldhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com
Travel Stories, Pictures, and Blogs from Around the WorldSat, 02 Mar 2019 19:33:48 +0000en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://wegortw.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/cropped-wegortw.jpg?w=32We Go Round the Worldhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com
3232Year of the Hikeshttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/year-of-the-hikes/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/year-of-the-hikes/#respondSat, 02 Mar 2019 19:33:48 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5503Continue reading Year of the Hikes]]>Sure has been quiet around here.Our little dude is growing up fast for us, probably slow for him. And the saying of the days are long but the years are short has never been more true!

Mrs. RTW gave me plenty of free time to go have solidarity with the fellas and I can not thank her enough as you can see we have been having a blast!

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/year-of-the-hikes/feed/0Big BendwegortwHappy Placehttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/happy-place/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/happy-place/#respondFri, 06 Jul 2018 21:14:25 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5423Continue reading Happy Place]]>Being a new parent can be a mental mind funk from time to time (I tried to find a nicer way to say it, but the thesaurus doesn’t seem to help with slang). Thankfully EmSue has saved my sanity on multiple occasions by taking Miles to see his grandparents giving me a chance to head-out into wilderness for some rebalancing.

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/happy-place/feed/0IMG_7998wegortwTired as a Motherhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/tired-as-a-mother/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/tired-as-a-mother/#respondSat, 28 Apr 2018 15:28:22 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5382Continue reading Tired as a Mother]]>How in the world has it been over a year since our last blog post?! Trust us, we have been asking ourselves this…and well the answer is that we have been busy living life with our little man.

2017 was a year of firsts for not only Miles but also for us as new parents. From being a couple who loves to travel and experience epic adventures we have since morphed into a little family still having grand adventures; just that those now involve bringing things like diapers, sippy cups, and white noise machines. Before starting a family, a 10 mile hike into the woods was a “walk in the park”, nowadays we spend most of our time literally in a park running after a toddler who somehow has more energy than the energizer bunny.

Yes, things are different these days and though the saying goes “nobody likes change”, this little guy has shown us that it is possible to feel more feelings than we thought were possible all at once and amplified times a million…love, frustration, guilt, anxiety, happiness, longing, jealousy and exhaustion…yes, yes, we are still very tired. At the end of the day we are blessed by this little blue eyed tow head and we can’t wait to watch him grow up.

Cheers to having more fun trips (vacations?!?) and epic adventures in 2018!

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/tired-as-a-mother/feed/0IMG_6544emilysueo2,016 Miles to gohttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/2016-miles-to-go/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/2016-miles-to-go/#commentsSun, 01 Jan 2017 05:09:38 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5332Continue reading 2,016 Miles to go]]>2016… I can’t count the number of times I have heard someone say they have hated this past year and that 2017 can’t get here fast enough. For some this was a year filled with loss. Yes, we did lose many iconic people this year…Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Carrie Fisher just to name a few. Then there was the Presidential Election…ugh can’t even go there. For us though 2016 was not so much a year of loss…unless you are talking about sleep

This year was a little different for us. Instead of loss, we gained. Our baby, the one we have wished for these past few years made his grand debut in September. Our son, Miles, “graced” us with his presence on a late Saturday evening. In fact, he came into this world 1 day before his big sister Grace’s original due date that was supposed to be 2 years prior. A time of year that had once been associated with sadness and grief, now will be so special and hold a positive light for years to come.

I am not gonna sugarcoat it…this having a baby thing is no joke. It is hard! Some people may think that leaving your job, selling your possessions and taking off into the big unknown world is hard. NOPE, that is easy. Of course Miles has definitely not been an “easy” baby. He’s given us a run for our money as new parents by being colicky right from the start (even now as I type this just minutes before 2017… yay happy new year to us ~ agghhhhhh). Sometimes we think maybe being married for 10 years before having a baby made us selfish and made it more difficult for us to adapt to parenthood. Maybe or maybe not… but either way Dustin and I like to joke that parents out there aren’t telling other future parents about the reality of starting a family and how tough it can be to adjust I will say though that each day gets a little bit easier. When Miles laughs and smiles we forget about the long, sleepless nights. And I will add that those sleepless nights are still in full force even now as he approaches 4 months and I am back to work full time. I understand completely now why sleep deprivation is considered a form of severe torture. However, I know this too shall pass and I have heard we will forget these hard times and even (gasp) miss them years from now. In any event, we have been extremely blessed with a HEALTHY baby boy who is growing like a weed and teaching us so much about ourselves as individuals and as parents. We love you, Miles!!

2017 is going to be a new year like no other for us as a family. We can’t wait to get Miles out there to start seeing the world! We can already tell he loves to travel and be outside just like his parents… How do we know this you ask?? Well, for one thing he has been best behaved when we have been either on an airplane or outside in nature!! So first on the agenda is getting him his own passport.

Typically in years past our New Year’s blog post lists our resolutions (or really goals) for the upcoming year. So here it goes…

Goals for our family…

Sleep more and Cry less (applies to all of us, but will have to get Miles’s permission)

Get outside…put many, many miles on Miles’s jogging stroller

2016 goal complete of learning how to use the plural correct punctuation of a name that ends in ‘S’

Take a trip out of the country…not sure where yet, but gotta put our passports to good use

Get a not so “mini” version of a Van for on the road adventures (more on that in years to come I am sure)

Buy some soil near mountains/beach/lake – or just away from the hustle and bustle of city life

Miles’s Goals for 2017 (his firsts)

Get my first passport

Touch Snow in the mountains

Play at the beach in the sand

Swim!

Sleep in a tent (go camping)

Sit up, Crawl and Walk

Eat real food!

Say my first word…mama, of course

We wish everyone reading this a VERY Happy New Year!! With so much love and thankfulness for the amazing year we had, we can’t wait to see what is in store in 2017!

Love,
Emily Sue, Dustin, Baby Miles & Vegas

Last photo as a coupleHello World!Ummm… Best in Show?Can’t believe I am finally a mommyBeer makes the dad thing look easyFirst flight and doing wellMerry Christmas and Happy New Year to all

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/2016-miles-to-go/feed/10IMG_0180emilysueoNever Rent a Jeep in Hawaiihttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/06/18/never-rent-a-jeep-in-hawaii/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/06/18/never-rent-a-jeep-in-hawaii/#commentsSat, 18 Jun 2016 18:48:25 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5279Continue reading Never Rent a Jeep in Hawaii]]>The problem with renting a Jeep in Hawaii is that it becomes your third wheel and eventually your companion, so much so that when you get back home to normal life you feel incomplete without one. This results in spending more money for a daily impractical vehicle and leaves you yearning for even more adventure.

It all started out before we departed Whistler halfway through our two week vacation of 2015. We had this very fuel economical (read cheapest) econo cereal box of a car that was going to be so cost effective for our week long rental that we could laugh in the faces of the $5/gallon fuel prices of being on the Big Island. As with most our travel procrastination we waited until the day before going somewhere to figure out what sightseeing we would want to do once we arrived. The shortlist for the Big Island quickly revealed endless amounts of waterfalls, Waipio Valley, Volcano National Park, and Mauna Kea Volcano summit. Here is the rub though, two of those places require 4wd to access them and once you see the cost for a one person tour to the top of the Volcano you quickly feel a drop in the gut that you won’t be seeing the summit without hiking to the top of the 13,800′ peak.

This all led to the bright idea on the day of flying to Hawaii to just see if rates were still as high when we originally reserved our econo-box weeks before. This is actually always a good tip as dramatic savings can be had one day before arrival for your same rental period ~ unlike airlines. SCORE for the same price as our 1972 VW Bug rental we can rent a 4wd 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 4 door for the week!

Everywhere across the internets you will find companies on the Big Island scaring you to death about taking your own rental car up to the summit of Mauna Kea and down into the valley of Waipio and if this scares you then you should probably heed their warnings. But…. Now this next part I can’t actually advise you to do as you would be breaking your rental agreement contract, but beyond mentioning that your contract actually says you can’t leave any “paved road”, which is just their disclaimer way of saying if you F’it up it’s on you $$$. If you can get over that then this is where the magic of your third wheel becoming your companion for the trip.

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/06/18/never-rent-a-jeep-in-hawaii/feed/4Mauna Kea Jeep SunsetwegortwWhistlerhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/whistler/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/whistler/#respondSun, 06 Mar 2016 15:53:14 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5160Continue reading Whistler]]>Writers Block…. argh! So we have been postponing this post for a long time, because honestly we didn’t have anything creative or eye opening to share. The sad part in doing this though is that other blog posts back up behind it. So hopefully this will be the post that goes unnoticed (mostly because we disabled the email notification temporarily until we get back to having something worth saying).

It’s not that Whistler wasn’t great fun, it was. Dustin gave it his first go at downhill mountain biking and thankfully no major injuries occurred even with blowing out his rear brake while heading downhill (hydraulic brake line split and he lost all brake pressure). Plus this was the second time we got to take advantage of Dustin’s company perk of Bear Stay thanks to the super gracious hosts of Chris and George; their place was amazing – https://www.vrbo.com/641928

The short summary is you are basically taking a hike on the side of a cliff that results in a lateral ladder system. Where it doesn’t require any rock climbing skills; it does help if you are not afraid of heights and able to do at least 10 pull-ups.

Kim taking off to find her own hike

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/telluride-via-ferrata/feed/1Telluride Via Ferrata WallwegortwStart of the Via FerrataKrogerata Via Ferrata RouteVia Ferrata Start of HikeDrop Off CarTelluride SwitchbacksVia Ferrata HikeTelluride PanoramicVia Ferrata HikeMore like the French Via FerrataIron WayTelluride Via Ferrata WallVia Ferrata WallVia Ferrata WallVia FerrataBig ArmsLong Way DownGet it Made ItPandora Mining Best hike near Whistlerhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/best-hike-near-whistler/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/best-hike-near-whistler/#commentsTue, 06 Oct 2015 14:23:20 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5085Continue reading Best hike near Whistler]]>Naturally when you visit a ski resort in the middle of summer you seek out what is the best hiking and biking in the area, no? Let me save you the trouble, if you want the best hike around Whistler and you are in good hiking shape the Garibaldi Lake Panorama Trail is all you need to know.

About a 20 mile round trip hike with 9,500+ feet of elevation change makes for a great challenging day hike or take your time and enjoy camping in the backcountry.

Since we couldn’t carry-on the flight hiking poles, Emily Sue found a trusty hiking stick to accompany her wayTake a look at the GPS data if you are into that sort of thing – https://www.strava.com/activities/377580804One of our first glimpses of the blue from the lower Barrier LakeBreaking out of the tree line we found long distance viewsBear back scratcher?We came upon this unexpected creature next, apparently she decided hiking wasn’t for her and opted for some nude sunbathing instead

Other hikers told us the glacier on the left used to extend all the way down the valley just 15 years ago ~ sadWe stopped to take in the views with our little bird friend

Watch for rolling ankles

9.5 miles and 4,775 feet of climbing = well worth it

Starting the long walk back down

As a filthy hiker in seemed a quick ice bath was in orderSome censorship was required as hiking briefs not quiet equal to a swimsuitMeanwhile EmSue was taming the local wildlife

Somehow switchbacks are always worse on the way downA sentimental moment in the soft moss at the end of a long day or just resting?Ending the day with a natural muscle relaxer to ease our post hike soreness
]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/best-hike-near-whistler/feed/118wegortwGaribaldi Lake Trailhead Garibaldi Lake Panorama Trail Map and GPSBarrier LakeGaribaldi Lake Panorama TrailBear fur or dead mossGaribaldi Lake Nude Sunbather89Garibaldi Lake GlacierGaribaldi Lake Panorama Trail13Garibaldi Lake Panorama TrailBlack TuskBlack Tusk Garibaldi Lake PanoramaGaribaldi Lake Panorama Garibaldi Lake Panorama TrailYoga Posing Around the World - Garibaldi Lake Panorama TrailBlack Tusk HikeGaribaldi Lake Panorama TrailGaribaldi Lake SwimGaribaldi Lake DipGaribaldi Lake BirdsBlue Garibaldi Lake Garibaldi Lake SwitchbacksHiking under a dark canopy Whistler BreweryVancouver, yet another Cityhttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/vancouver-yet-another-city/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/vancouver-yet-another-city/#commentsSat, 26 Sep 2015 01:56:06 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5067Continue reading Vancouver, yet another City]]>Yet another city is not meant to be an insult; I would say the same thing about Austin, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, and even New York City. It’s just that it’s another city.

When you are grinding the 9-5 M-F commuting back and forth in a city your thoughts do not wander around what it would be like to sit in traffic in yet another city. Well except for what it would be like to have a great infrastructure of mass transportation with true multi rail lines or dedicated divided bike lanes. But in general, NO, my thoughts tend to head towards mountains, oceans, beaches, trails, vistas and the absence of people.

So why travel to Vancouver? For the same reason you travel to Denver, it’s the gateway to the mountains! Plus during the dead of summer in Texas heading anywhere north is a vacation in it’s own. With any new location you do get a sense of excitement and anxiety as you navigate a new town. So we checked out the top highlights from wikitravel and tripadvisor and got to hitting the sites.

What’s your viewpoint on cities or better yet where does your mind dream of escaping to? Send us some inspiration!

]]>https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/vancouver-yet-another-city/feed/4IMG_8557wegortwIMG_8459 CollageIMG_8557IMG_8589IMG_8484 CollageIMG_8564IMG_8461 CollageIMG_8593IMG_8594Gone to the Dogshttps://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/gone-to-the-dogs/
https://wegortw.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/gone-to-the-dogs/#commentsSun, 16 Aug 2015 21:20:54 +0000http://www.WeGoRTW.com/?p=5030Continue reading Gone to the Dogs]]>After reaching the high point in Texas we made the rest of the long exhausting drive to Colorado. We were excited to spend the next few days with our good friends, Sam and Kim, who had recently moved from Houston to Durango after their beautiful wedding we had attended in Costa Rica. We got to do a little acclimating there which would end up helping Dustin on his bicycle rides and our upcoming hikes. We loved our time in Durango with them and got out and explored the area in the cooler temps. Kim and Sam have 3 dogs and with Durango being such a dog-friendly place, we took one of the pups with us almost everywhere we went. This sure made us miss our little Vegas.

After our time in Durango we eventually headed back into New Mexico where we ended up spending some time in both Santa Fe and Taos Ski Valley. We made an attempt at the that state’s high point as well, but found the same result as we did in Colorado with much of the high passes snowed in. On our way back to Austin we spent a night with family in Lubbock which rounded out a memorable road trip! Turns out we left Austin during the perfect week; it rained the entire time we were gone and record flooding occurred.

Buddy making his appearance hiking the Vallecito Creek Trail

There is a danger in these woodsIt was hot on our trailRocky was the first to fall prey and became one with the RockiesRocky had to be held-&-carried out

To round out the dogs, Bailey made the road trip to OurayLeaving Colorado behind we made our way into Santa Fe, NM

Big thanks to Mary Noel and Amanda for cluing us in to Las Palomas in Santa Fe, if you have to stay in a hotel this is the one you wantHoping to round out our trip by high pointing New Mexico we headed up the Wheeler Summit trail in TaosUnfortunately again with the late season snow and our lack of crampons and planning Wheeler Summit and New Mexico’s high point will have to waitHappy to settle with Williams Lake for this tripWheeler Summit and Williams Lake

After the long road trip home, we made sure to spoil our little Vegas Man by treating ourselves to one last outdoors experience in Zilker Park